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Electricity cuts across an entire nation. A capital rationing water. A mayor encouraging people to shower together to save precious drops. The world’s largest river system, the Amazon, which sustains some 30 million people across eight countries, is drying up.
A record-breaking drought that is well into its second year is punishing much of South America, including the Amazon rainforest, upending lives and local economies and providing an alarming glimpse into the future as the effects of climate change become more apparent.
In Brazil, wildfires fueled by searing heat and prolonged dry conditions have consumed vast swaths of forest, wetlands and pastures, with smoke spreading to 80 percent of the country. It has led to canceled classes, hospitalizations and a black dust coating the inside of homes.
To the south, in Paraguay, the Paraguay River has hit new lows. Ships are stranded and fishermen say their most valuable quarry — including the enormous surubí catfish — have all but disappeared, forcing many people to look for work elsewhere to feed their families.
With much of South America dependent on hydropower, electricity production has plunged. In Ecuador, people are enduring energy cuts of up to 14 hours per day, knocking out the internet and sapping the country’s economy.
In Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, the government is cutting water to residential homes at regular intervals and the mayor has suggested that people “bathe as a couple” to reduce consumption.
Long sections of the Amazon River have turned into dry, brown beaches, and officials are dredging sections to make them deeper.
How big is the problem?
The drought has touched every country on the continent except Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. It stretches, roughly, from the province of Córdoba in north-central Argentina to the continent’s northern tip, according to the U.S. agency NOAA.
Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela have been hit particularly hard, with significant swaths of these countries experiencing “exceptional drought,” marked with a deep red color on a NOAA map.
The drought covers large parts of the Amazon rainforest, especially worrying because it is the globe’s most important carbon sink, absorbing heat trapping gases.
Dryer conditions diminish the forest’s ability to take in those gases, worsening global warming, said Lincoln Muniz Alves, a climate scientist at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.
Why is the drought happening?
The drought is fueled by two trends linked to climate change, said Carlos Nobre, a Brazilian scientist. First, a particularly strong El Niño weather pattern parched the region.
While El Niños, a natural climate occurrence linked to warmer conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean, have caused droughts for millions of years, stronger El Niños have become more frequent as the planet warms.
Second, the temperature in the North Atlantic has hit a new high, contributing to the drier conditions.
In the Amazon, the drought has crossed several unsettling milestones: never has so little rain fallen in the rainforest, never have dry conditions lasted so long, and never has such a vast region of the jungle been in drought, Mr. Nobre said.
The drought comes amid another worrisome moment: In January, for the first time, the planet’s average temperature hit 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels for 12 consecutive months. Temperature levels beyond that would lead to consequences that would make it challenging for societies to cope.
Many scientists and policymakers hadn’t expected the globe to hit that mark for years, said Mr. Nobre, and the announcement has raised concern that the earth’s warming is accelerating.
It will take more time to understand if that is true, and if the planet has passed that 1.5 degree mark for good.
“We are scared,” Mr. Nobre said.
What are some of the effects on people?
In recent weeks, wildfire smoke has fallen like a dusty curtain over São Paulo, Brazil’s economic capital and Latin America’s biggest city, causing the metropolis to register the world’s worst air quality.
Other Brazilian cities have also suffered a sharp rise in air pollution, prompting the authorities to cancel classes, delay outdoor parades and urge people to stay indoors.
The smoke has sickened Brazilians and placed hospitals under pressure, as more people seek medical care for respiratory issues, according to the country’s health ministry. Even a Supreme Court justice wound up hospitalized when dense smoke blanketed the capital, Brasília.
Patrícia de Andrade, 50, woke one September day to a blood-red sun and heavy air. “It was just a curtain of smoke,” said Ms. Andrade, a public relations specialist who lives in Indaiatuba, a city some 50 miles northwest of São Paulo.
After exercising outdoors, she struggled to catch her breath. Just after lunchtime, she collapsed in her home and had to be rushed to a hospital with respiratory problems.
The air quality has improved, but the wildfire effects are inescapable. “You clean and clean that black dust,” Ms. Andrade said. “It’s everywhere.”
The drought has also pummeled Brazil’s energy grid, since hydropower supplies over half of the country’s energy. The country’s biggest dams have had their water reservoirs dwindle to just over 40 percent in September.
Months without rain have dried rivers and streams in the Amazon that serve as practically the only way to connect communities and move commerce in some of the planet’s most remote areas.
Distant Indigenous villages have become isolated. Some face shortages of drinking water, medicine and food, with the authorities delivering aid by helicopter.
Looking to cut back energy consumption, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva even considered returning to the daylight savings system, which the government scrapped in 2019.
What about the rest of the continent?
In Ecuador, more than 70 percent of the country’s electrical system depends on hydroelectric plants. Low water levels, combined with a lack of maintenance and investment, have pushed the system to a breaking point.
Ecuador has also experienced a surge in forest fires that have devastated more than 23,450 hectares of vegetation — about 69 Central Parks, according to Ecuadorean officials. The fires sent many fleeing last month when the flames raced into Quito, the capital.
The blaze consumed the home of the Moya family, prominent figures in Ecuador’s architectural scene, incinerating a cultural treasure trove: an extensive library and editorial archive dedicated to the country’s architectural history.
Rómulo Moya, 60, recounted frantic hours working to save his parents, who are in their 80s, and trying to save their possessions.
The family’s publishing business, which produced hundreds of architectural titles, was wiped out in a matter of hours. Mr. Moya estimated that about 15,000 titles were destroyed, including rare books dating to the 19th century.
When the Moyas returned, they were awed by the devastation. “Our hearts exploded and our breathing stopped,” Mr. Moya said “We remained silent.”
In Paraguay, drought in the Pantanal — the world’s largest tropical wetland — has caused the Paraguay River to fall to historic lows.
Fishermen say their catch is disappearing. Shipwrecks on the now shallow river are snaring nets and damaging motors. In the absence of larger predators, piranhas are proliferating, chewing rods and tackle.
“How are you supposed to survive if you’re a poor person and you make a living from fishing?” said Dionisio González, 51, the leader of a local fishermen union, camped out on a rocky beach that was underwater a few weeks ago.
In Colombia, almost 70 percent of the country’s energy is generated through hydroelectric dams, and experts say the drought could lead to electricity rationing nationwide.
The national government is already encouraging utility companies to increase thermal energy production by burning coal and natural gas.
The drought is also shifting complex natural relationships. A 400-pound river dolphin, for instance, was probably fishing for food in a parched part of the Colombian Amazon known as Monkey Island when water levels dropped.
The dolphin found itself trapped in what had become a lake, said Daniel Alonso, a veterinarian and director of a nature sanctuary near Leticia, Colombia.
Now, the animal is alone, isolated from food sources and other dolphins. Dr. Alonso hopes water levels will soon rise, allowing it tosurvive the drought.
When will the drought end?
Scientists expect a new weather pattern, known as La Niña, to begin soon, said Mr. Alves, bringing “some chance” of increased rainfall across the continent and better conditions by year’s end. Still, that won’t change the larger trend: Temperatures are rising, reshaping life across the region.
Laurence Blair contributed reporting from Asunción, Paraguay, and Jorge Valencia from Bogotá.
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